“Vanniv, burn the vines!”
Then they were all around me, wrapping around my limbs and throat. My barrier didn’t trigger to stop them from making contact. They weren’t moving fast enough or applying enough force for it to register them. Not yet, at least.
Vanniv looked down at me, raising a single gray eyebrow. “You want me to set them on fire while in them?”
“Just a little fire to clear them!”
Vanniv laughed. “I don’t do little, kid.”
He stretched out a hand just as I felt the tendrils begin to tighten.
My vision turned white — and not because of the pressure.
When my eyes cleared, there was a perfectly circular gap in the vines around me, maybe ten feet in diameter. Charred remains littered the floor, but I hadn’t felt a degree of heat.
That was... impressive. Not the intensity of the attack. I’d seen plenty of powerful fire spells. The degree of control necessary to make the flames exclude me.
The vines that had wrapped around my body were still there — a foot or two of plant connected to each limb and around my throat — but they were disconnected from the main body now and had ceased to move. I brushed them away in disgust, turning back to the Tyrant.
“Okay, that was pretty good,” I admitted. “You want to light him up next?”
“With pleasure.” Vanniv pointed a hand at the Tyrant. I saw the effect more clearly this time. A bead of flame manifested in the air right in front of the Tyrant, then flickered as it detonated into an incendiary sphere.
I should have known better than to hope it would be that easy.
When the smoke cleared, the Tyrant was unsinged.
An echoing laugh emanated from the armored figure. “Your magic is weak. Your resistance irrelevant.”
Vanniv balled his hands into fists. “Weak? You haven’t seen a fraction of what I can do.”
The Tyrant began to walk forward with a deliberate slowness. He was maybe twenty feet away. It wouldn’t take him long to close the distance even at a slow pace.
Okay, what was I missing here? How did people handle the Tyrant in Gold in legends?
My family had never been particularly devout, but the Tyrant was a central aspect of our culture. Everyone knew about him. He’d conquered nearly the entire world outside of Kaldwyn. He was the only entity in the world with enough power to rival the goddess herself.
And, thinking back to the stories of heroes opposing the Tyrant, they all ended one way—
—the heroes died.
It was possible that trying to beat this guy in a straight fight was unwise.
The problem?
I didn’t have any better ideas. I didn’t have a bell on me. When I’d used it before, it’d been left behind in the other half of the dungeon. Presumably, the others would have picked up the one that I used, and Sera had the one that Jin had used.
And, unfortunately, Sera was on the other side of a sealed door.
“Vanniv, you got anything bigger you can hit him with?”
The karvensi grinned. “Of course! Buy me a few moments, would you?”
That I could do.
I raised my sword in a salute.
The Tyrant paused...then mirrored my gesture.
Huh.
Maybe there was something there. Was he going to fight honorably?
I mean, enshrouding a guy in plants wasn’t exactly the traditional definition of honorable, but maybe there was a way I could take advantage if he was going to be bound to some kind of rules.
I’d have to keep that in mind. But, for the moment, I charged.
I hadn’t had a good sword fight in ages.
The Tyrant brought his sword down in a heavy slash. I side-stepped, allowing the greatsword to crash into the floor. It sliced carpet and into the floor beneath.
A quick thrust from me. He stepped backward faster than I’d expected, avoiding the strike, while dislodging the greatsword from the floor.
The room was getting darker, but I couldn’t pay attention to that. The greatsword whistled sideways, threatening to bisect me. I met it with a parry, which was a mistake.
The impact force was staggering. I flew backward, plants deliberately parting around me, and slammed into the nearest stone wall.
My barrier kicked in on that impact, but even the more advanced sigil I’d made wasn’t good at softening kinetic force. I felt a moment of bone-shuddering pain as I cracked into the wall and fell to my knees.
The Tyrant turned to where I’d fallen and walked toward me at a leisurely pace. He was only steps away from melee reach.
I lashed upward from my kneeling position pushed on the sword’s aura with transference mana from my hand. A crescent wave of kinetic energy leapt out of the weapon, ripping through the air.
The Tyrant met it with a swing of his own. For an instant, a sphere of force manifested in the air, and the Tyrant fell back a single step.
Not bad.
I braced myself, using the saber to push myself to my feet — a terrible idea, and a great way to ruin a sword — and allowed myself a grin.
I may have celebrated a little too soon.
The Tyrant gripped his sword with both hands, raising it above his head — and copied my technique.
And even at a glance, I could tell the wave of cutting force that he’d sent toward me was vastly more powerful than my own.
I didn’t have a lot of room to move. The plants had cleared to let me hit the wall (thanks for that, plants), but they were still close enough to impede my ability to dodge.
So, I countered with something more experimental. I activated my demi-gauntlet’s transference burst, but as the energy tried to leave the gauntlet, I grabbed it with my mind and tried to channel it into my sword. If I could combine the sword’s mana with the gauntlet’s, maybe...
My gauntlet’s blast slipped free, careening uselessly into the ceiling.
The Tyrant’s slash caught me dead-on.